


The Devil Inside

by elisabethjj



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M, I brought the Jedi Council back, I hope you like your Kylo dark, Multi, Sharing a Body, because of plot reasons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-03-17 12:41:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13659198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisabethjj/pseuds/elisabethjj
Summary: I've been fascinated with the way that fic writers are exploring the duality of Ben Solo & Kylo Ren as two personalities or two parts of one man's experiences/self-identity. In this fic, I've taken it one step further and am exploring an AU where Ben and Kylo are two separate beings, sharing the same (banging) body.Due to a long standing and totally unbreakable engagement contract that she signed when she was seventeen and in love with a fellow Jedi apprentice, Rey finds herself marrying Ben Solo, traitor and number one enemy of the Resistance. The kicker? Not only is Ben right hand man to the Supreme Leader of the First Order, but he's hosting a Sith Lord: a powerful dark spirit in the Force that can only manifest corporeally by merging with a Force-sensitive volunteer. Ben literally has a devil inside him, and his name is Kylo Ren. Now Rey finds herself navigating life behind enemy lines, whist simultaneously navigating a complex personal arrangement with the two souls living within her husband's body.





	1. Chapter 1

‘So, it’s decided then,’ Rey says. 

Finn is concerned by the blank look in her eyes. He thinks she might be in shock. He’s seen Rey feisty and he’s seen Rey stoic, but he’s never heard this horrible flatness in her voice before. Nobody—Finn included—really thought the Jedi Council would come back with this, frankly, cold-hearted ruling. Then again, the Jedi way is centered on pragmatism over passion, so maybe this makes perfect sense. Still, every fibre of Finn’s being balks against a Council of wizened old Jedi Masters deciding Rey’s future like it’s a matter of political strategy. His best friend’s health, happiness and liberty should not be reduced to a kriffing contract dispute. Yet, that’s exactly what’s happened

Finn slides his hand into Rey’s, as General Organa looks on. 

‘I’m afraid so,’ Leia says, and this might be the most bitter that Finn has ever seen the General. He knows how fiercely she believes in a woman’s right to independence, to dignity, to freedom—as much as any man. The fact that Leia herself—a younger, more naïve version of herself—has played a role in creating this situation must be weighing heavily on her conscience. That, and Finn knows how close the two women have become, over the years that Rey’s been apprenticed to Master Luke. ‘If it had just been the contracts of intention between the families,’ Leia visibly swallows, ‘then the lawyers might have got around it, but—’

‘I bonded with him,’ Rey finishes Leia’s explanation, voice flat. Finn squeezes her fingers and feels the tension shudder through Rey as she finally shakes her head and sinks down onto the chair behind her. They are huddled in what serves as the General’s makeshift office space on this base. ‘Kriff,’ Rey sighs wearily, blinking up at Finn. ‘What an idiot.’

‘You couldn’t have known,’ Finn says, because he thinks he ought to say something. The truth is that the whole thing was recklessly done, and the consequences are going to be hard to live with. It was one thing for a young Leia and Han Solo to sign a contract betrothing their young Force-sensitive son to their best friend’s Force-sensitive infant daughter. Such a contract is, Finn knows, not enforceable without the consent of both parties to the intended marriage, once they come of age. Though an antiquated practice outside of Galactic royalty, these kind of agreements are still common among followers of the Jedi way. Force-sensitive individuals are still rare, and any union that brings with it the likelihood of children strong with the Force is strongly encouraged by the Jedi Elders. That said, even the cool, detached Jedi aren’t in the business of wedding people against their will. Usually. 

‘Things were…different, when you met Ben,’ says Leia. Boy, is that the understatement of the century. Finn tries not to roll his eyes, because he respects the hell out of General Organa, but even he can tell there were some signs written on the wall that Leia The Mother should have picked up, before everything went to Hades in a handbasket. Before her Force-prodigy son, trained by his own uncle and on the brink of becoming the strongest Jedi Knight in a generation, decided to sign up to host a kriffing Sith Lord in his noggin. 

Rey’s worrying her bottom lip and avoiding her future and soon to be estranged mother-in-law’s eyes. 

‘I thought we were…I thought I loved him,’ she says. Finn’s heard this story before, from general gossip on the base—which, naturally, he has shut down hard, even punching one pilot in the mouth for being particularly disrespectful about it—and, once, from Rey herself. They were both more than a little drunk at the time, but Finn will never forget the wrecked quality of Rey’s voice as she’d tripped over Ben Solo’s name. 

Rey is so beloved by her friends in the Resistance, that Finn forgets how lonely her upbringing was. She may be the granddaughter of legendary Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi but, after her parents were killed in a shuttle crash on the desert wasteland of Jakku, Rey endured a terrifying eight years on her own. Rey had kept herself alive mainly by scavenging, until Obi-Wan’s old apprentice Luke Skywalker had finally tracked her down and brought her to the Temple where he was training young Jedi padawans. It was there that seventeen-year-old Rey met Ben Solo, Luke’s nephew and the boy her parents had betrothed her to all those years ago. In Finn’s opinion, Luke is as useless a parental figure as absentee-mom Leia was at this point, because the Jedi Master either didn’t know or didn’t mind that a young girl so utterly starved for human contact was promptly seduced by his twenty-something-definitely-old-enough-to-know-better nephew. Well, that’s what Finn’s decided happened anyway. He knows Rey thinks it was some romantic affair, but Finn worked with Ben Solo and Kylo Ren before he defected from the First Order and he can’t imagine it was anything so innocent. 

‘No-one blames you for what happened, Rey,’ Leia says. ‘We all loved him. None of us knew the path he would choose.’

Of course, Finn thinks, it was same choice that Ben’s grandfather made, not so many years before, and Anakin ended up hosting the legendary Darth Vader for the rest of his days, so, maybe, someone should have had an inkling. Or at least been keeping a sharp lookout. Not that Finn wants to judge, but Rey’s whole future is now utterly kriffed because she’s bonded to a man who’s sharing a body with a Sith. Apparently, when you ratify a betrothal contract—literally sign it in your own blood—and then share a sexy Force-bond creating romp through each other’s minds, the Jedi Elders will hold you to it. Even if you were seventeen and full of the folly of first love. Even if, before you can get to the actual marriage part, your beloved decides to join forces with the Dark Side and leaves you to work for a ghoulish old Sith in the pursuit of Galactic domination. 

Finn feels sick. Rey looks like she might actually be sick. 

‘Do you,’ she looks at Leia now, for guidance, or some kind of more-adult-than-me wisdom. ‘Do you know how it works? With both of them in there?’

Since Ben made the dramatic and oh-so-Skywalker choice to offer himself as a host for a Sith spirit, everyone probably thought the issue of his engagement to Rey was null and void. The official First Order envoy, formally requesting a wedding date be set, came as something of a shock. Not least because, well, Ben isn’t just Ben anymore. The Sith walking around wearing Ben Solo’s face is known to the whole galaxy: Kylo Ren is Supreme Leader Snoke’s right hand man and a weapon of utter, ruinous destruction for the First Order. Quite how he and Ben both get along sharing one body is a matter of much speculation, on both sides of the war. The secret ways of the Sith are one of the last true mysteries of the Universe.

At least one thing is clear: Snoke is apparently just as greedy to get his hands on some promising Force-user younglings as the Jedi Elders. Everyone knows Ben and Kylo don’t jump without Snoke telling them how high. What other explanation can there be? Finn highly doubts that Ben suddenly felt lonesome for a summer romance of his youth. Even if he did get mind-meldy with her.

‘Oh, Rey,’ Leia’s face crumples. She looks every one of her sixty-two years in this moment. ‘I wish I could say that I understand exactly what you’ll be walking into. I know Ben’s still in there, and I do believe he cared for you once, so I have to believe that you will be safe.’

That sounds less than reassuring, but Rey merely nods. 

‘Kylo Ren is a monster,’ Finn said, hating how rough his voice sounded. He unclenches his fists and takes a deep breath. ‘Don’t let your guard down, but, look.’ He rubs a hand over the top of his head, trying to find the right words. It’s doubly awkward discussing this in front of the General, knowing he’s seen more of her son (and his co-habiting demon) as a grown man than she herself has. ‘I’ve seen Ren in action. He blows hot and cold, but he’s intelligent. You can bargain with him. And he’s revered in the First Order. Yeah, he’s had his moments, but he’s generally more of a monster to the Order’s enemies than he is to its friends.’

‘I’m no friend of the First Order.’ Rey flinches from the notion. 

‘You’ll be married to one—uh, technically two maybe—of its senior commanders,’ Finn says, trying to be gentle. Rey’s face is already pained enough. ‘I’m just saying, you can control the extent to which he sees you as a threat, or a…neutral.’ He can’t bring himself to say ally. Everything about this is sick and wrong. 

Leia leans forward, resting her elbows on the table between them and assuming General Mode once more. ‘The silver lining, if there is any in this kriffing mess, is that we have the best opportunity in a decade for a spy in the highest echelons of the Order.’ Finn tries to check his reaction to this, hating that politics is once again taking priority over his friend being bartered away like a prize nerf stock. Leia catches his eye anyway. ‘I know you hate me for saying it.’

‘I get it,’ Finn says. And he does. This war matters too much to pretend otherwise. It doesn’t matter more than Rey, but, they are where they are. Rey’s fate is sealed—she either goes through with the marriage or she takes her chances on the run from the mighty resources of the First Order, on her own once more. The Jedi Council won’t gainsay the betrothal contract because of, you know, Force reasons, and the Resistance Leadership is salivating at the chance to get a spy in Ben Solo’s bed. Doesn’t mean Finn has to like it. None of them are going to have to be the one to actually marry Ben…and Kylo. Kriff. It hurts his head. 

Rey sighs.

‘No, it’s good actually. Means I’ll still have a purpose.’ She huffs a little humorless laugh. ‘Means I’ll still be Resistance. The rest of it—the marriage—it’s just like a deep cover.’ She frowns. ‘That potentially never ends.’

Leia reaches out to touch Rey’s arm. 

‘One day at a time, baby girl.’ 

‘Yeah,’ Rey nods. 

‘Remember,’ Finn says, feeling brave in his anger, ‘no-one is expecting you to save Ben Solo. That ship has sailed.’ He ignores Leia’s sad little glare, focusing on his best friend’s eyes. ‘Do what you can, safely, to get information back to us. I know you’re strong, I know you’re Jedi-powerful. But. Don’t put yourself at risk to try and bring Ben back to the Light. If you go up against Kylo Ren like that, he will destroy you.’ Finn speaks firmly, trying to impress the importance of his words onto Rey’s brain. Would that he could wield Jedi mind compulsion right now. ‘Keep yourself safe. Keep yourself alive.’

‘I promise,’ Rey says. ‘Finn, I won’t do anything stupid.’ 

It’s not enough, and Finn doesn’t know how to be alright with this.

‘You’re so brave,’ he tells her, pulling his best friend into his arms. ‘I know you will get through this.’

Rey lets him wrap himself around her and, for a moment, with Leia looking stoically on, they pretend it will all be okay.

Three weeks later, Rey’s on a transport heading for the neutral agreed upon location where she will marry Ben Solo and the Sith Lord sharing his body.


	2. Chapter 2

Rey tries not to freak out as the shuttle lands. Really, she tries, but even the solid presence of Finn at her side is limited comfort as she stands on the brink of the abyss.  


Honestly, Rey can’t imagine why Ben is doing this. Finn thinks it’s about Snoke buying a Force-user bearing brood mare—oh, he hasn’t said it as bluntly as that, but she’s seen the furious looks he’s exchanged with Poe and she can read between the lines of what he has said. Rey knows Force sensitives aren’t growing on trees, but she’d still be surprised if a Jedi, trained by Luke Skywalker himself and actively declared for the Resistance, is the easiest choice if the Snoke’s recruiting a baby momma for Solo. Anyway, she can’t think like that, or she’ll really freak out. It’s too vile. 

Maybe this is Ben sticking it to Luke and Leia. Depriving the Resistance of a Jedi and reminding his family how powerful he’s become, in one fell swoop. Crushing the spirit of the Order’s enemies, to make some kind of sadistic point. 

Rey sighs. It’s probably impossible to try and divine the intention of a man who, turns out, she never really knew in the first place. Over the last five years, she’s done her best not to let herself linger on thoughts of Ben, preferring not to torture herself reliving the pain and humiliation attached to those memories. Ben broke her heart in spectacular and very public fashion, made her doubt everything she’d thought was real. Rey had never been able to make sense of why Ben had let it go so far, when he knew he was going to leave. He’d already had her body—another thing Rey tries not to think about. Certainly he could have left it at that. Why had he said he loved her? Why go through with the charade of solemnizing the betrothal contract originated by their parents so many years before? Why the blood oaths, and the intimacy of the Force-bonding, if he was planning such a horrific betrayal? Rey’s never been able to figure out what all that gained Ben. 

‘I didn’t know him then and I don’t understand him now.’

‘What?’ Finn looks up from his conversation with Poe. Accordingly to a painstakingly hammered out agreement, Rey is accompanied on her shuttle by a small entourage of Resistance officers, but no Leia and no Luke. If, against all available intel, this turns out to be a trap, the Resistance isn’t willing to sacrifice more of its key assets. Besides, Ben’s made it perfectly clear his mother and uncle would not be welcome.

‘Just thinking out loud,’ Rey says, smoothing her hands down the sides of her woolen cloak as they gather near the top of the exit ramp. The shuttle touches down, but no-one moves to unseal the hatch. The crewman by the control panel seems to be waiting on Dameron’s command, but Poe is looking at Rey. She wonders if she looks as nervous as she feels. Judging by the expression on his face she needs to pull herself together a bit more convincingly. 

‘Just say the word,’ says Poe, ‘and we’ll make a break for it. I’ll fly this ship out of here myself, Jedi Council be damned. We’ll work something out.’ 

Rey knows he means it, and boy does she love him for it. But, no, she shakes her head. 

‘I think this is the way it’s got to be,’ she says, biting her lip. Poe’s jaw resets in that way that means he’s swallowing an opinion or five.

‘For now,’ Finn says. 

‘For now,’ Poe echoes, firmly. 

Anything they have to say to each other has been said over the past days, and none of them are inclined to get all emotional now they’re facing the business end of the operation. So, Dameron gives the signal, and they make their way off the shuttle.

The place where Rey comes face to face again with the one-time great love of her life is suitably dramatic. 

The planet is small, mostly divided into sprawling private estates belonging to the fabulously wealthy. There are enough lakes, hills and verdant countryside to impress even the more well-seasoned traveler, let alone a desert orphan turned Jedi apprentice who has, at her worst, lived in squalor and, at her best, in almost puritan simplicity. Essentialy a glorified holiday resort, it’s been deemed a politically neutral location. The orange-stoned palatial home loaned to them for this momentous occasion belongs to the founder of one of the most popular fashion houses in the Core Worlds—if push came to shove Rey isn’t holding out much hope for where the designer’s loyalties lie. It’s not a First Order command base though, so she’ll take it. 

Rey, Poe and Finn, flanked by their small but fierce entourage of soldiers, make their way down the ramp, to be greeted by a stunning pink sunset, a gentle afternoon breeze and a smiling Ben Solo.

It’s so unexpected that Rey is caught horribly off-guard and almost smiles in response. Ben looks great. Seriously. He’s filled out in the years since they were last face to face, losing the last of his youthful gangliness in favor of broad shoulders and sturdy limbs. She’s seen him on holos off course—as a prominent figure in the First Order he’s frequently in the news. Close up, though, it’s a bit of a kick in the teeth how handsome Ben still is. His hair is longer, curling in a stupidly attractive way round his face. There are freckles on his nose. She remembers kissing them, once upon a time. Karking hell. 

He also looks unaccountably happy to see her.

‘Rey,’ Ben’s voice is deep, but warm, and so achingly familiar that Rey almost flinches with heartbreak anew. ‘Sweetheart.’ 

Now Rey does flinch, for real, at the old endearment. It doesn’t stop Ben crossing the distance between them and wrapping his huge frame around her, entirely uncaring of the Resistance blasters suddenly pointing at him. For their part, the half dozen stormtroopers standing in a perfect semi-circle behind him raise their weapons in response.  
After a moment where Rey is frozen by shock inside this unexpected embrace, Rey gives Ben a good, hard shove. It doesn’t dislodge him, but he grunts a little and steps back, looking at her quizzically. 

‘Don’t touch me,’ Rey shoves a finger at the traitorous Skywalker heir. Her emotions have suddenly pitched sideways and she finds herself righteously enraged. ‘E chu ta! You total, unmitigated asshole.’

She can tell Finn is shifting a little nervously, in her peripheral vision, but the dam has burst on all the anger she’s been bottling up since this whole mess began.  
Ben is starting to look a little less pleased and a little more like the steely-eyed hardman of the First Order that he is. 

‘What’s your problem, Rey? I thought you’d be pleased to see me.’

Rey makes a weird and probably quite rude noise of disbelief. 

‘Are you kidding me?’ She’s vaguely aware of how shrill her voice is right now, but it doesn’t seem like the top priority. ‘You _left_ ,’ she gesticulates widely, trying and probably failing to encompass the grave enormity of the manner in which Ben Solo left the Jedi training temple, ‘and I haven’t heard from you for five years, and now you’ve become everything the Jedi and your family stand against and you have a karking _Sith Lord_ in your head and, what? You think I’m _happy_ to be summoned from across the galaxy and dragged away from all my friends to be the wife of a filthy, stinking traitor?’

Rey’s chest is heaving with the violence of her words, and there’s a livid red flush spreading across Ben’s neck and creeping up his face. 

‘I guess I thought,’ Ben spits out, ‘that you meant it when you put your name next to mine, in your own blood, and promised to marry me. I guess I was stupid enough to think that you created a Force-bond with me because you knew me and loved me for who I am.’

Rey is floored.

‘Ben, you murdered nine of our friends on your way off Ahch-To,’ she says, not bothering to hide the pain in our eyes. ‘You broke your Uncle’s heart, your parents’ hearts.’ Her voice grinds down into a pathetic, broken thing and the _my heart_ goes unspoken. ‘You must know that you burned everything that was between us when you burned the Temple down around our heads.’

She’s holding Ben’s gaze as she says it, so she sees the terrible, shattered look that comes over him. For a long moment, as they hold this charged, fragile moment between them, Rey thinks that marriage might not be an issue after all—that Ben will either try to kill her where she stands or simply disappear from her life once more. In the end, neither happens. 

Ben’s gaze shutters and his hands, decked out in black leather gloves that complement his formal black Sith robes, clench into fists before relaxing once more. 

‘Regardless of how you feel,’ he says, voice stiff and lacking its previous warmth, ‘the arrangements are made and we will be married in three days. 

He glances at her companions, as if noticing for the first time that they are not alone. He waves in a vaguely irritated gesture at his posturing stormtrooper escort, and, as one, they smartly holster their blasters. 

‘Exalted company you keep,’ he says, by way of acknowledging Poe and Finn. Rey rolls her eyes, but doesn’t rise to the bait as Ben makes a deeply sarcastic sweep of his arm towards the veranda at the far side of small palace. ‘Shall we take some refreshment and try to regain a civilized footing before we continue this conversation?’

Rey already feels exhausted. The problem is, he’s still the same Ben underneath it all. Quick to joke and quicker to anger. Charming, most of the time, but stubborn and obnoxious underneath it. Insecure in his feelings, but absolute in his beliefs. A Skywalker princeling twisted into the fist of the First Order. Rey can’t begin to understand the path that’s led Ben to the man he is today, but. She’d come here expecting to meet a stranger, and this is so much worse. 

This planet has two suns, and the first is just meeting the horizon in a plume of pink, gold and red as they reach the gazebo that’s been prepared for them. A small table rests at the front edge, overlooking a crystal clear lake, with two plush armchairs. Poe pulls back a chair for Rey to take a seat, before Ben can get there, which earns him a glare. She manages a small smile at Poe, before he, Finn and the rest of the combined entourage take up position a respectful distance across the veranda, leaving the engaged couple with at least the illusion of privacy. 

A servant appears with lemonade and a dish of savory canapes. There are purple feathered swans on the lake. If Ben hadn’t broken her heart and spent the next five years mass murdering his way across the galaxy, this would be pretty romantic. Considering how Ben apparently anticipated this reunion going, it doesn’t seem coincidental. 

‘You know,’ Ben says, apparently back to being charming again now that he’s calmed down from the initial sting of rejection, ‘I really think that once we have a chance to talk things through, you’ll see my side of the whole situation.’ He sips his lemonade and eyes her earnestly. ‘I never meant to abandon you, Rey. I never thought you would doubt how much I love you, or that I was always serious about our future together.’

Rey takes a deep, fortifying breath. 

‘I want to speak with Kylo Ren,’ she says. Ben’s right eyebrow arches infinitesimally. 

‘Why?’

She straightens her spine. Feels the smooth, cold surface of the table as her palms flatten against it. Looks Ben in the eye. 

‘I bound myself to you. You’ve bound us both to him. I may have little to no choice in this arrangement, but I at least want to meet my other husband-to-be before I marry him.’  
Ben looks deeply put out and like he’s going to argue, but then seems to think better of it. The leather of his black gloves creaks as he draws his hands together, fingertips pressed to fingertips. A strange, forced smile ghosts across his lips and then, suddenly, he changes. 

It’s both everything and nothing at once. The tiniest change in posture, a fractional rearranging of facial muscles. Ben blinks, and Kylo Ren’s eyes open. They gleam a horrifying yellow. For all her efforts to appear unmoved, Rey can’t repress the shiver that goes through her. 

The Sith regards her, like Rey imagines a cat watches a fat beetle scuttling around it’s paw. Lazy and unconcerned, only half-interested in the kill. 

‘Lady Rey.’

The darkness that shrouds Ben’s aura rolls in thick, viscous waves off Kylo Ren. You don’t have to be Force-sensitive to feel the Sith’s power, but to one as strong with the Force as Rey it’s almost suffocating. She’s dizzy with it. 

‘You’ll acclimate,’ Kylo Ren says. Rey hopes it’s her visible discomfort that prompts this remark, and that he’s not stealing thoughts from her mind. She’s heard stories of Kylo’s interrogation techniques on First Order prisoners. ‘You have an abundance of Light, so the Darkness is harder for you to bear. You will grow more comfortable as you become more used to being in the presence of the Dark Side of the Force.’

‘What if I don’t want to become used to it?’ Rey shuts her eyes briefly, in a bid to regain control, and when she opens them again Kylo’s yellow gaze is boring into her. Time stretches out for a long moment and she thinks he will be angry, but then he shrugs and smirks. It is a decidedly un-Ben kind of look. 

‘Then you should not have agreed to marry Ben Solo.’

‘I think you know that I’m not here by choice,’ Rey says. 

‘No?’ Kylo says. He holds himself differently to Ben—less coiled tension and more measured arrogance. The cadence of his voice is somehow more intense, the pitch a fraction lower. ‘You haven’t been brought to the altar in chains, unlike some Sith brides of days gone by.’ 

Rey’s fists clench, under the table.

‘Not physical ones, no, but that hardly makes me willing.’

Kylo smiles, and it is not a pleasant thing.

‘You may save yourself the explanation. I am privy to all of Ben’s experiences; you do not need to repeat what you have already said to him.’

Well. Rey kind of knew that was how it worked, but it’s still creepy to think of Kylo lurking around the back of Ben’s mind during all their interactions. She shivers, and Kylo’s lip curls. ‘Another concept you’ll become used to.’

‘Then you know,’ Rey says, ‘that I despise the First Order and all you stand for, and I hate the Sith even more. That will never change. That’s the wife you are choosing to bind yourself to.’

She feels a threatening pulse in the darkness emanating from Kylo Ren, but his expression doesn’t shift from the vaguely courteous, cold arrogance that Rey can’t stand to see on Ben’s features. The Sith leans forward and Rey suppresses the instinct to flinch. 

‘You are brave—foolhardy, but brave—to speak to me this way,’ Kylo Ren says. ‘I can see the spirit that Ben admires in you, but do not make the mistake, Lady Rey, of thinking that I will tolerate disrespect or suffer you to cause embarrassment to my Master’s court.’ His tone is boredom edged with irritation, but Rey can feel the power flexing beneath each word. She has never felt more vulnerable without her lightsaber, left on the shuttle as per the detailed protocols negotiated for today. Still, however unwise it might be, she is unwilling to back down. If Kylo kills her where she stands, it might even save them all some trouble. 

‘I am not some First Order lackey you can order about,’ she says, through gritted teeth.

‘No,’ Kylo says, voice even and holding himself perfectly still, when Rey thinks Ben would be working himself into a right old lather by now. ‘In three days, you will be a Sith lady and you will behave with the dignity your station dictates. Ben’s love for you and my Master’s belief in your potential for greatness ensures my loyalty, but not my lenience.’  
Rey snorts, but something about his turn of phrase catches her interest. 

‘Do you even want this marriage?’ She asks the question before she thinks better of it. As far as she’s concerned, Kylo is a squatter in Ben’s body and if there’s any chance to evict him she’ll take it. That said, she’s kind of curious as to why he would agree to such an arrangement, or if he’s just following Snoke’s orders like a good little Sith soldier.  
Kylo’s yellow-eyed gaze rakes up and down her body. Rey’s pretty sure he’s doing it purposefully to unsettle her. 

‘I have no objections.’

‘That keen, huh?’ Rey bristles, and then mentally kicks herself for doing so. Stars, she really doesn’t care what this monster thinks of her. To her surprise, Kylo doesn’t take advantage of her bitter response to score a cheap point, instead deigning to answer her question more seriously. 

‘Nothing is more important to a Sith than power. You, Rey, have great power, and I find that attractive.’ He blinks slowly, long lashes dark across pale skin. ‘You do not yet understand the unique relationship between Sith and host, but I assure you Ben’s wellbeing is symbiotic to my own. He wants you, and so your presence pleases me.’  
‘I’m so glad it pleases one of us.’

Kylo stares at her from across the table. He doesn’t seem inclined to be drawn into an argument. This, more than anything, cements the non-Ben-ness of him in Rey’s eyes.  
‘Is there anything else you would like to discuss, Lady Rey, ahead of our marriage?’ 

There are probably a million things, but Rey definitely can’t wrap her head around them right now.

‘Will I not speak with you again before then?’ Rey says, instead. 

‘If you like,’ Kylo says. ‘Though Ben asked for this time to spend getting reacquainted with you, and of course I would never stand in the way of true love.’ His tone is mocking.  
Rey focuses on the practical elements of what he’s said. 

‘So you arrange it in advance, like a time-share? Sounds like quite the complicated arrangement.’ She’s genuinely curious as to how it works—the whole galaxy probably is, but Rey’s going to have the dubious honor of seeing the Sith-host bond up close and personal.

‘Not so complicated.’ Kylo shrugs. ‘You’ll come to understand, with time, and through your Force-bond with Ben.’

‘Our bond is dead,’ Rey says, automatically. 

Kylo’s eyes glint. 

‘Is it?’ 

Rey frowns. It’s been one of the most distressing elements of everything that happened with Ben. Making the Force-bond at such a young age had been naïve, she knows now, but she had been so in love. From the first moment the Bond flared into creation, it had been the most beautiful, pure and spiritual experience of her life. She and Ben were connected on a level that she’d never imagined could be possible—they were one in the Force and it was transcendental. Then, one night, Ben had left their bed, committed one of the greatest acts of treason in Jedi history and joined the Dark Side. The bond had closed that night and, in her grieving heart, Rey had always believed it was because Ben Solo had killed it along with the Light inside him.

‘I’d kriffing know if it wasn’t,’ Rey says, narrowing her eyes back at the Sith Lord wearing her ex-lover’s face. 

Kylo Ren merely smirks, leans back and closes his eyes. When they open again, Ben holds his hands up placatingly. 

‘Rey, sweetheart,’ Ben says, and smooths his hair back in a nervous tick that Rey absolutely does not find endearing on account of how he’s a traitor and an asshole. ‘I can explain.’


End file.
